The Responsibility of Creating Music : Adam Hooks and The Huckleberries
The term “local band” has confined Albuquerque artists to a predetermined standard that many of our musicians far surpass; Adam Hooks & The Huckleberries help erase the imaginary boundaries and reinvent the two-word term.
COVID-19 devastated families worldwide and tested governmental infrastructure. However, another truth is that it provided an opportunity for some artists to run with new projects. The summer of 2020, singer-songwriter Adam Hooks and guitarist Joshua Lee were able to play music together. The jam session quickly transpired into a situation that left Hooks asking Lee, “So, when are we writing the album?”
“When we started working together, [Lee’s] influence musically showed me a completely different world,” said Hooks. “‘Cause even I, being a former punk rocker, as Dead Head-y and open to things as I wanna be, I still had that same outlook of racist, redneck, whatever. A part of that is just because I grew up around a lot of racist rednecks who listened to country music. But when we first started this band, Josh [said], ‘You should really rethink this and look at it as a possible way to show yourself musically.'”
Following the addition of drummer Dustin Hoag came their debut full-length, So Far Gone. The album was comprised of “Tears and weed,” according to Lee. After the album was recorded, a new bass player joined: Wyoming-bred JD Korpitz.
When asked what is behind the motivation to keep creating music after so much time and through so much difficulty, Hooks responded, “This is what we do.” Hoag added, “Yeah, because we can’t do anything else.” Though that may be a slight exaggeration coming from Hoag, it highlights something important about the country quartet: Not only are they near masters at their instruments, but they conduct themselves as professional musicians above all else.
Albuquerque has a prosperous music community of artists of all proficiencies. The result is an ecosystem; while factions exist, each smaller community helps one another, directly or indirectly. The ecosystem is the ‘local scene,’ comprised of ‘local bands’ and ‘local musicians.’ Adam Hooks & The Huckleberries enjoy being a local band, but they don’t necessarily like the label.
“I don’t like the term ‘local band’ because the term already pigeonholes you into ‘I only play within an hour of my home most of the time.’ Which isn’t the reality of most of the bands we look up to,” said Lee. “As much as we want to play in the local scene, which we totally do, I would hate to label us a local band because I feel like that gives us a title that shortens our reach or expectations.”
While many see no shame in the local band’s distinction, Lee, a decorated musician, has a point. He’s not advocating for the disparagement of the soil that nurtured you or the slandering of those in your community. Instead, he’s stressing the importance of respecting oneself as a musician and creator.
A kismet combination of character and experience has shaped the trajectory of Adam Hooks & The Huckleberries. Their individual similarities and differences have allowed their goals to align.
“We all come from somewhat different backgrounds, but we all have similar drives and motivations. The collaborative process has been really constructive and healthy,” said Hoag. “We’re all kind of veterans at this point. So, we’ve all got our eyes on the prize, and we’re not letting anything slow us down at this point in our lives.”
Hooks concurred: “I know at least for myself, I put all my eggs into a single basket very young, so I’m gonna carry that fuckin’ basket as far as I can, is just what it comes down to. And I think that goes for mostly everybody [in the band].”
Not only is the band ready professionally, but Hooks feels like he’s at a breakthrough point with his songwriting. After a few years of feeling afloat creatively and not knowing where his passion might take him, a dam broke. “I feel like [songwriting is] one of the only ways I can properly deal with my emotions and experiences. Some people can go from something and immediately process it and move on. And I—I feel too much to be able to do that,” Hooks explained. “A lot of the times, I’ll write a song that I just needed so badly, and it’s this great cathartic experience of realizing when [I’ve] completed it, just like, ‘Aw, man, I apparently wasn’t talking about that stuff, and I apparently needed to be talking about it.'”
One keystone element of country music is storytelling. The music
is just the vessel to get the story to the people. Under that light, the band has a duty to a vocalist like Hooks to support that transfer. “It’s also an exercise in restraint because it’s all about supporting the songwriter,” Hoag said. “So, when you get a chance to write with a songwriter like Adam, it’s like, oh yeah,” he continued, emphasizing his regard for Hooks’s artistic capabilities.
Playing country music is also an exercise in doing the genre justice. “I played country my whole life. My family was into it. They all danced,” said Lee. “Just being a guitar player, it’s challenging. Country has more techniques than anything else, no question about it. It’s just three chords and the truth.” Hoag added to Lee’s notion that playing country is tough and ambitious if you do it right. “As
a musician, it’s rewarding because it takes an incredible amount of skill to match with these bands’ styles of music.”
“I grew up in Texas, and country [music] is like the wallpaper there,” Hoag continued. “It’s easy to take it for granted growing up there and thinking that everybody experiences it in that way. In high school, I kind of pushed back against the culture of country music and started playing punk rock music as well. But then later, when I moved to New Mexico, I became really fas
cinated with it as a musician again and sort of re-embraced it, especially in the local scene.”
On the draw of country, Hooks said, “It’s music for the people in the same way punk rock i
s.” There is a notion—created by what could be considered jingoistic country music—that country music caters to a simple, restricted niche. In reality, like Hooks said, it’s a lot more ‘punk’ (dimensional) than that. One good example of this dichotomy is when Chris Stapleton surprised certain people by endorsing the Black Lives Matter movement. Another would be when The Chicks admonished George W. Bush and the invasion of Iraq.
Adam Hooks & The Huckleberries are a part of a country movement that is, consciously or not, trying to dispel the notion that it can’t be enjoyed from a complex political or pop standpoint. Hooks expressed that the bottom line may be “Music is Music, and if it’s good music it’s good music… We’re about the songwriting; we’re about playing. We’re about making good art. We’re more of a red dirt Texas country, as opposed to a fuckin’, you know, mainstream thing.”
The band lets the music speak for itself in a way that is seemingly not hard to achieve in Albuquerque. Hooks’s mentality is that “There should be less importance put on genre and more importance put on good music.” If you’ve attended a show here in the 505, you know that a positive attitude and ample kindness can go a lot farther than mainstream-sounding songs. From ‘local bands,’ you can expect outside-of-the-box music.
“There are elements of New Mexico that are inseparable from the way we make music. Coming out of the pandemic, it seems like there’s a lot of enthusiasm about coming out again and seeing live bands,” said Hoag.
“I just hope that there’s a resurgence of people’s investment in local music. People support local bands beyond just being at the location.”
“We all fell in love with the desert and made it our home. But in general, this is a hard fucking city, and I think we have to go through a lot of shit to decide that you’re not leaving this place. At a certain point, that’s what we really connect with.
We’ve all been through some shit,” Hooks posited. “[Adam Hooks & The Huckleberries] is kind of a new chapter. Not only did Albuquerque build us, but we want to give back to it as well.”
Learn more about the local music scene and the artists that built it HERE
